Copyright and Trademarks

Copyright is a bundle of exclusive legal rights that vary depending on the type of work. A copyright owner can grant some or all of those rights to others through a license. This section will lay out our approach to copyrights, trademarks, and Creative Commons licenses.

Copyright protection applies to any original works that are fixed in a tangible medium. This includes works like drawings, recordings of a song, short stories, or paintings, but not something like a garden, since it will grow and change by nature. Copyright does not cover facts, ideas, names, or characters.

Copyright protection begins when the work is first created and it doesn’t require any formal filings. However, to enforce a copyright in the US, you need to register the work with the US Copyright Office. (For further clarity, check out their FAQ page, which is full of gems like “How do I protect my sighting of Elvis?”)

Copyright notice on the work is not required but it is recommended, since it cuts off a defense of innocent infringement.

Copyright law applies to nearly every piece of content we create at Mailchimp, from our website to our blog posts to the gifts we make for our users. We display proper—and prominent—copyright notice on our website site and any other content we produce.

This is an area where the letter of the law and common practice sometimes differ.

Social media posts often include copyrighted elements like pictures, GIFs, or pieces of writing. If you’re using a copyrighted element in a commercial manner on social media, you should request permission from the copyright holder. Since Mailchimp is a company, we defer to the position that our use will be perceived as commercial. But if you’re using it in a more informative or commentary way, like sharing a meme to indicate how you feel about a news story, you may not need to request permission.

Regardless, you should always link to the source of the copyrighted element you’re using, and never make it look like you created work that belongs to someone else.

Mailchimp almost always uses original images in our blog posts. If you use an image, photo, or other design element made by someone outside Mailchimp, get permission first. Once you have permission, always give the copyright owner credit and link back to the original source.

Images retrieved via Google image search are not licensed for fair use, but many images are available under license through stock photo websites, or open for use under a Creative Commons license. Flickr has a great search feature for images available under Creative Commons licenses.

Instead of the standard “all rights reserved,” some creators choose to make their work available for public use with different levels of attribution required. That’s what we’ve done with this style guide. Find a breakdown of licenses on the Creative Commons website.

Please check with Mailchimp’s legal team before making something you created here available under a Creative Commons license. We love to share our work, but we use these licenses sparingly, because we have to protect our intellectual property and trade secrets.

A trademark, often called a mark, can be a word, name, sign, design, or a combination of those. It’s used to identify the provider of a particular product or service. They’re usually words and images, but in some cases, they can even be a color.

To be protectable, a trademark needs a distinctive element. There’s a “spectrum of distinctiveness” that spans from inherently protectable marks to ones that require additional proof to ones that may never be protected.

Fanciful marks, which are made up words like Kodak or Xerox, are the most easily registered and protected.

Arbitrary marks, which are words which are used out of context like Apple or Sprite, are also easy to protect.

Suggestive marks, which suggest at some element of the goods or services like Greyhound, follow.

Descriptive marks, where the word's dictionary meaning aligns with the goods or services offered, like Mr. Plumber or Lektronic, are not protectable unless they develop a secondary meaning. That means a consumer would immediately associate the mark with only that good or service. This can be hard to prove, so it's best to avoid descriptive marks when possible.

Generic terms, or the common name for a product or service, are not protectable.

We usually classify Mailchimp as a suggestive mark, but it could also be considered fanciful.

A trademark is only valid for as long as it indicates the source of that good or service, so we have to be very careful about how our marks are used. We send out cease and desist letters sometimes, because even the friendliest companies have to protect their trademarks. If a trademark is properly protected, it can last forever and may be a company's most valuable asset.

We register all of our trademarks. Before we decide to use a name for a product, we perform a trademark search to make sure there aren’t any confusingly similar trademarks already in use.

For the most part, our trademarks are “suggestive marks,” which mean the name suggests at some element of the goods or services represented.

If you’re working on a new product at Mailchimp, submit name possibilities to the legal team so they can get a head start on the trademark search. Even if you haven’t used the name yet, we can go ahead and file an Intent to Use application.